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Saturday, June 16, 2007

Senseless: Governor Vetoes Probation Funding Fix

Of all the probation bills that passed this session, I can't believe Governor 39% chose to veto HB 3200 by Madden (discussed here on Grits), which would have revamped probation funding formulas to accomodate new diversion regimens and to give offenders incentive to earn their way off supervision through good behavior.

House Bill No. 3200 would revise the funding formula that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice uses to fund community supervision and correction (probation) departments. This bill is problematic because the revised funding formula provides penalties for each felony defendant whose community supervision is revoked due to a "technical violation." Yet, there is no statutory definition of what constitutes a "technical violation." Just as important, there is no guidance in the bill as to how much of a funding penalty should be applied for these technical violations. Thus, we risk creating a system that has perverse financial incentives which undermine the purpose of probation itself.

I encourage both the Legislature and the Board of Criminal Justice to continue looking at ways we can improve the probation funding formula.

Offhand I have two main criticisms of the Governor's logic: First, what constitutes a technical revocation isn't named in statute but is well established in practice, because Second those definitions do exist, only by RULE instead of by statute. Ditto for the "funding penalty" described - those details were rightly delegated to agency rulemaking, which is both appropriate and common practice, but the Governor's veto message pretends the bill would create some functional problem because it lacked that definition. It didn't.

I'll bet local probation department directors will be grumpy - this veto potentially creates a management nightmare for them. As a Grits commenter noted, the Governor has chosen to:

let most of the new probation laws go into effect but he has vetoed the all-important funding revision that went along with them. That means that the CSCDs will be losing many probationers to "early release" without providing anything to make up for the funding they will lose as a result of those releases. Expect cutbacks in existing and valuable CSCD programs to offset those losses.

Sadly, I think that prediction quite likely to come true. What was the Governor thinking? This insensible veto creates headaches for local probation departments and judges and undermines other reform legislation aimed at reducing probation revocations to prison. For the second session in a row the Governor's vetoes put probation departments in a bind, in this case creating incentives for early release without altering the funding formula to make sure it doesn't bankrupt the system.

There's no ideological rhyme or reason for this decision. It's not a liberal or conservative thing to do. It's just mismanagement, plain and simple.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

So what effect does the veto have on implmentation of SB 166 if he lets it become law? It would have CJAD give preference to departments that present a plan targeting medium-risk and high-risk defendants and use progressive sanctions. I guess I never understood the relationship between these two bills.

They were related, but not directly so. SB 166, SB 909, HB 530 and HB 1678 will all still take effect, but HB 3200 would have re-arranged financial incentives to that their implementation wouldn't financially penalize departments. Now if they use early release penalties, it could cost them money and even require programming cuts. As near as I can tell the reforms in those bills will still go forward but he just pulled the financial rug out from under local probation departments. Honestly, I don't think anyone understands all the implications, yet.

Oh, to further elaborate, as I think about it, SB 166 actually refers to GRANT based funding in the budget where CJAD gives preferences, etc. All that's still intact.

What 3200 did was adjust the per-probationer funding formula to front-load it to give departments incentives to let probationers who'd behaved for many years to earn their way off supervision through good behavior. Now the early release provisions are still in, but the reversion to the old funding formulas could potentiall cause big problems for CSCDs. Like I said, I think right now nobody can fully understand what it means.

Ok, so as a probation officer- nothing changes. HB 1678 will be a dud because we will not be pushing for early terms on the defendants. Most were getting close to 5 years probation in Bexar already. We need someone to actually fix the funding and make some sense.

The whole probation reform legislation package was a joke to start with. It was an unholy alliance between leftwingers who don't think anyone belongs in prison and some rightwingers more concerned about money than public safety. The Governor should have vetoed them all. What is ironic, is that with the softening of probaiton, prosecutors may feel that probation does not adequately punish and/or supervise convicts. Look for more criminals to get a ticket to prison without a probation offer.

The Texas leadership is proud and does take pride in leading the nation in prison referrals. In fact the leadership laudes the work of the TDCJ. Probation will always be an after thought. Is it about public safety or about what looks good in my lapel? We suffer from brain drain in Austin, and the people of Texas allow it to happen. God bless our great state.

Probation is NOT an afterthought as you suggest. Set your rear-end in any courthouse in the State and witness the GOOD OLE BOY goings on. You will see a large number of defendants getting another 2ND chance at probation. (meaning: If your attorney and the judge are buddies, you will get your 3rd, 4th, 5th 6th or whatever chance). When is someone in Austin going to get some intestinal fortitude and change the way probation is funded, the probationers are not paying their supervision fees, so I believe that the public is! Why not stop the bleeding with PRISONS and try a new approach. Well trained, well paid supervision officers with manageable caseloads that allow for intevention and more supervision which could produce the desired results.

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